Hokies Freshman Ineligible

Former Hampton High basketball player Darion Pellum has been ruled academically ineligible at Virginia Tech and likely will transfer to a junior college.

Pellum, a 6-foot-6 guard, is enrolled at Tech as a freshman, but questions surrounding his SAT score prompted the NCAA to rule him a non-qualifier, Hampton assistant coach Walter Brower Jr. said Thursday. As such, Pellum can't play at Tech or any other ACC school, according to conference regulations.

"The coaches at Tech told him that his best option is to transfer and go to a junior college," Brower said. "He doesn't want to do that, but he doesn't have a choice."

Pellum may enroll at Hagerstown Community College in Maryland, according to Brower.

Pellum played at Hampton High before transferring to Massanutten Military Academy in Woodstock in 2005 to improve his academic standing. He repeated his junior year at Massanutten in 2005-06 and completed his senior year there in 2006-07.

Brower said Pellum practiced with the Hokies and was scheduled to participate in their three-game exhibition tour of Canada in late August and early September. But just prior to departure, Pellum and Tech learned of the academic issues and he remained in Blacksburg, according to Brower.

Pellum's SAT score was disallowed by testing authorities "because he had too many erasure marks on his answer sheet," Brower said. Asked if such questions translated to an accusation of cheating, Brower said, "Basically."

According to Brower, the answer sheet with the erasures produced a score approximately 100 points higher than Pellum's first attempt.

"That last score (came) during the school year at Massanutten when he was taking an SAT prep course for math and for reading," Brower said. "He was in there every day working and preparing, and he took it that spring and got the higher score, which wasn't odd at all.

"If it had gone from 700 to 1,000, that would have been something different. ... No educational institution is going to condone anybody cheating because that's going to get them in trouble. So we know the kid sat down and took the test."

After the second score was disallowed, Pellum was given three days to prepare for a re-test, Brower said, which resulted in a lower score. The lower score, when combined with Pellum's grade-point average, makes him ineligible under the NCAA's sliding scale of test scores and GPA.

"This is a kid who did everything he was supposed to do," Brower said. "I just feel so bad for him because of the way things are going down."